The Tanks We Get/Transcript

WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW

Into a personal sauna.

[ gunshots ]

[ glass shatters ]

harold: [ laughs ]

if you worship nature,

then here's the high priest

of the forest,

the grand pooh-bah,

with an amazing resemblance

to the pooh bear,

here he is --

mr. Red green!

Wa-a-a!

Pooh bear!

Our pooh bear!

Oh, bear!

Whoo!

Thank you very much,

and thanks for tuning in,

and I would like to apologize

for any

of the religious overtones

in harold's introduction there.

Uh, harold, possum lodge is not

exactly a place of worship,

and if I could work miracles,

would you still be here?

Ha ha ha.

Well, yes, I can work miracles,

uncle red.

[ keyboard clacking ]

[ chuckles ]

see, I just raised this show

from the dead.

Well, it can go back.

Been an interesting week up here

at the lodge.

Uh, bob stuyvesant,

who works for the department

of natural resources,

has to dispose

of a whole bunch

of rusty old

40,000-gallon gas tanks.

These are

the big, huge tanks

that they put underneath

the gas stations, you know?

And, apparently,

when a gas station closes,

the government makes them

dig them all up.

I guess it's kind of a make-work

project or something, you know.

So, anyway, bob's got

to get rid of 50

of these great, big,

huge gas tanks.

Flinty watson,

a local scrap-metal dealer,

he took one of them,

but, uh, it was about

three-quarters full

of premium unleaded,

so, uh, flinty's

scrap-metal truck

and flinty's

scrap-metal furnace

and his scrap-metal crane

are now pretty well

just scrap metal.

And, harold, remember that big,

hairy dog of flinty's?

Oh, yeah!

It's a bouvier.

Well, not anymore,

harold.

More of

a hairless chihuahua.

And a real jumpy one.

But a big one.

It looks a lot like

old man sedgwick.

So, now bob is down to 49

of the tanks,

and, uh,

next thing you know is,

he's offering

100 bucks a tank

to anybody who will

take one of them away.

Yeah, okay, right.

Good luck.

[ laughs ]

I took 49 of them.

You got a problem with that,

harold?

Well, yeah, I mean, they're

ugly, and they're dangerous,

and they're toxic.

Well,

so are the lodge members.

So we're gonna

get along fine.

As a matter of fact,

we sat around the other night,

and it was just amazing the

number of ideas we came up with

as to what we can do

with all these huge gas tanks.

I blame the beer.

Whatever, you know.

Uncle red,

I'm just saying.

I get a bad feeling

about you guys monkeying around

with 50 huge,

humongous gas tanks.

49, harold.

Okay, 49.

[ explosion, glass shattering ]

48.

Okay.

[ spoons and guitar playing ]

♪ when I was

just a schoolboy ♪

♪ I had pens and papers and a

nice-looking turtle named mort ♪

♪ it really bothered me

that he was slow ♪

♪ I was willing to overlook

that he was short ♪

♪ we studied

in east indian culture ♪

♪ and I got an idea

in class ♪

♪ I stopped feeding mort

for a month or so ♪

♪ 'cause the teacher said that's

how you make things fast ♪

she was wrong.

Yeah.

Red: This week on,

uh, "handyman corner,"

we're gonna show you

a few things you can do

with your clothes dryer

during those regular

three- or four-month hiatuses

between laundry day.

I'm sure a lot of our viewers

make the model planes,

and you get painting them up

with that special lacquer

on there that looks so good,

but it's very, very hard

on the eyes and so on.

Wouldn't it be nice to have

a nice place to dry those in?

Well, I suggest that what you do

is take the spinning drum

out of your dryer,

put some shelves in there,

and you can just lay the planes

or whatever in there real nice.

You got the heat,

it's dust-free,

and it'll take the fumes

and push them right outside

into your neighbor's yard.

So I suggest you just set

the control on the "delicate"

and run her for about an hour.

Well, now, that is interesting

because I-I had specifically

asked harold

to remove the spinning drum,

but, uh, well,

he's either forgotten

or maybe he got too busy

simonizing his head.

So what we're looking at here

is, uh, three years of

model building down the tubes.

Oh, I'm glad they weren't mine.

All right, uh,

I'll show you something else

that you can do with your dryer,

but for this one,

we definitely have to remove

the spinning drum,

which is no big deal.

Usually it's got some screws

on the back here,

or, uh, might be some wing nuts.

Not a big job.

Maybe it's the locking clips

on this --

no, no.

Maybe it got the sliders --

oh.

Well, I...

I guess she's probably

just a pressed fit.

All right, uh...

Where we are now

is, uh, what we call the point

of no return for a handyman,

uh, where,

in order for me to continue

trying to get the spinning drum

out of the dryer --

which is more trouble

than it's worth --

I have to make

the conscious decision

to take this personally.

Basically, what I'm saying is,

"this is my dryer.

I own this dryer.

I can do whatever I want

with this dryer,"

whereas what the dryer

is saying to me is,

"oh, no, no, no.

"you stupid burnt-out old man.

There's no way you're getting

anywhere near my spinning drum,"

and, to me, this is an attitude

that requires an adjustment

of significant proportion.

All righty, uh,

I didn't get everything out.

I left the motor and the belts

and stuff.

I don't think they do much.

I got the drum out.

That's the main thing.

Now what you want to do is, uh,

you want to take a marker

of some kind,

and, uh, you want to draw a hole

on the top of here

just about the same size

as your head,

or if you got a small head,

I guess you could draw it

the size of your hat.

And once you've done that,

now take off all your clothes

and get a jigsaw.

No, no, no.

Get a jigsaw and then take off

all your clothes.

I'm not making that mistake

again.

And what you want to do

is cut that thing out

'cause your head's

got to pop through there.

When you come back, be naked.

We'll have some fun.

[ film projector clicking ]

and now it's that time

of the show

where we examine

those three little words

that men find so hard to say --

"I don't know."

and now here to prove that point

once again is my uncle red

and his good friend

mr. Dougie franklin.

Okay, "dear experts.

I just bought a new car."

oh!

Cars are my specialty.

Oh, I'll say.

I'll say.

I'll tell you what --

there's nothing that dougie here

doesn't know about cars.

Oh, okay, excellent.

That's gonna make this question

so perfect, then.

Okay, it says, "my new car

has an electronic ignition

"and computer-controlled

fuel injection.

"I was wondering what is

the importance of boolean logic

and computer programming."

excellent question.

Uh, dougie?

What?

You want to field

that question?

Was there actually

a question in there, red?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it was the importance

of boolean logic and computers.

You know, like theorems

and logical propositions,

and, uh, and/or gates,

uh, set theory, you know.

We took all this

in algebra.

Wa-a-a.

[ clears throat ]

well, uh [coughs] you know,

that is a dandy question,

and, uh, but, you know,

I can't answer it

because they didn't

really mention

what make of car it was

they bought.

Well, let's just say

it was a ford product.

[ clears throat ]

uh, okay.

Uh...A ford, uh, product.

Well, uh,

of course your boolean logic

is less important in your ford

than say, uh, your gm product.

Uh, it may be a little bit

more important than a chrysler.

Now [clears throat]

your domestic boolean logic,

by and large, is not quite as

fancy, intricate, or convoluted

as your, uh,

imported boolean, uh, logic.

[ coughs ]

but, uh...

You know, if you were to --

to have like a --

like a set theory,

uh, break down,

uh, of course it'd be a lot

easier to get your and/or gates

or your or/and gates

or your and/or maybe gates --

oh, geez.

And, you know...

Lord knows if you're --

if you're intending on --

on rebuilding

a domestic, uh, theorem,

it's gonna be a lot easier

than one of those,

uh, flimsy,

uh, imported jobs.

I'll tell you that.

"it is winter.

"we hitched the horse

up to the sleigh

"like grandfather used to do.

"over hills

and through the dales

"we glide for an hour or two,

"and soon my ears are brittle

and my mouth is frozen shut.

"my eyes are locked wide open,

and all I see

is a horse's butt."

okay, so, what you have

is your very own

high-fashioned swedish sauna.

You just, uh, turn on the heat,

and it'll sweat the worries

and the pounds away,

and, by golly,

it feels awful good,

and if you got

a lint filter there,

it'll even clean out

your belly button for you.

So you set the setting

on the dryer

to whatever suits your style.

Maybe you're "normal"

or "delicate"

or maybe a "hot, fast tumble"

is the way you go.

Personally, I'm a

"permanent press" kind of a guy.

So, I'm gonna have

my sauna right now,

but you keep this in mind --

if the women

don't find you handsome,

they should

at least find you handy.

[ dryer whirring ]

well, I still had a few of

those big tanks to get rid of,

so I thought maybe

I could pawn them off

on the loneliest man

in the world -- ranger gord.

Oh, oh! Mr. Green!

Oh!

Excuse the mess.

I was hoping to have more

of this puzzle finished

before you arrived.

Well, I can come back later,

gord.

No! No!

Come on, come on.

It's fine.

Come in.

Boy, that's a --

that's a heck of a big jigsaw

puzzle you got there.

Yeah, 25,000 pieces.

[ chuckles ]

golly, I didn't know

they made them that big.

Well, they don't.

So what I did was I drew

a picture on my linoleum floor,

and I cut it out

into little pieces.

It took me six months to put it

together the first time.

But only five months

the second time.

[ laughs ]

good for you, gord.

You know, gord,

this is a bit of a long shot,

but would you have

any use

for a couple of

40,000-gallon gas tanks?

Boy, what's been going on

up at the lodge these days?

I've been hearing

some pretty big explosions

coming from over there.

You know, I bet I can guess.

I bet I can guess what it is.

Yeah, it's the gas tanks.

No, no, no.

Let me guess.

Let me guess

like they do on "dotto."

uh [clears throat]

are you guys

blowing up whale?

It's the gas tanks.

We had a couple of accidents.

Oh,

I bet I know what it is.

Uh, you guys are taking

something that ignites

and setting fire to it.

Yeah, you got it.

That's right.

Yeah, I knew it!

Ha ha!

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Do I win a prize

or something?

Yes, you do, gord.

You win, uh,

two 40,000-gallon gas tanks.

Oh! Wow!

Thank you!

Oh, this is great.

Ha ha.

I really appreciate this.

What will I do with them?

I'll, uh -- I'll make them into

marble towers or guest cabins.

You guys could drop by.

I really appreciate this.

Yeah,

I guess that could happen.

Well, uh, thank you very much

for your time, gord.

I really appreciate

talking to you,

and we'll see you later,

I guess, eh?

No, you're not going, huh?

Well, I...

Well, the puzzle.

What about the puzzle?

Puzzle? Huh?

What about your game?

We haven't finished

your little game show, huh?

[ voice breaking ] I haven't

done the bonus round yet.

That's not fair.

Stay.

[ crying ]

all right.

Gord, what I'm thinking is --

now, wait now.

What I'm thinking --

what I'm thinking

is that I could come back

when you need more tanks, huh?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

[ laughs ]

you can never have too many

marble towers or guest cabins.

No, but first you'll need guests

and your marbles.

Well, it's not even lunchtime,

and most of the tanks

have been spoken for.

Junior singleton duct-taped

three of them together

and made a pretty hefty

pontoon boat.

He's not gonna move too fast,

but he'll never run out of gas.

Uncle red, get this --

there's a whole bunch of them

down at the beach,

and they're welding them

all together end to end,

and here's the best part --

they figure they're gonna make

a tunnel

that goes right across

the bottom of possum lake.

Yeah, that's right,

harold.

We're gonna be able

to drive right into town

just like the holland tunnel

in new york city,

the big apple, harold.

Oh, yeah.

No, it should be

exactly the same.

You know, except, of course,

for, you know, the gas fumes

and the rounded bottom,

you know.

And the leaks.

You know, there's no light,

and there's no ventilation.

Otherwise -- boom-boom --

exactly the same.

[ chuckles ]

anyway, I just, uh, finished

putting the last coat of paint

on my own

particular project.

Oh, excellent. You got like

a plan for the tanks, too?

Yeah, I got one that had

quite a bit of gas in it,

and I rolled her up onto

rock reef point there,

flipped her up on her rear end,

went up on top,

drilled a hole

down through her,

put a work sock in there

as a wick, lit her up --

got ourselves a lighthouse,

harold.

Wow.

You want -- you want to get

in on this, harold?

I got about 15 of these tanks

left.

[ explosions ]

[ clears throat ]

roughly.

[ chuckles ]

tanks, but no tanks.

[ laughs ]

oh, I don't know, harold.

They make great

speaker cabinets.

Okay, I'll take two.

[ spoons and guitar playing ]

♪ rising up the stick

and rising up the bow ♪

♪ rising up my leg

as far as you can go ♪

♪ rising up the treetops

and rising out on the lake ♪

♪ who could ever guess

the consequences ♪

♪ when an overweight person

sits on a violin? ♪

red: Kind of a scary "adventures

with bill" this week.

Bill brought

all the paraphernalia --

yeah, we see you, bill --

life jackets and everything

'cause he said we had a problem

outside the lodge,

which really got my attention.

Quicksand?

Boy, you don't want

to fool around.

I was a nervous, right.

You know, that's something

that -- I'll just stand --

yeah, I'll just get in

behind you there, bill,

and I don't know exactly

how quicksand --

uh, he's gonna feel around

for it.

I don't know how quicksand

happens or anything,

but, you know, he's going and

all, and he starts to sink in,

and, uh, but then I look at

the other end of the pipe,

and he's just faking it.

Man! Whop!

Yeah, yeah,

that's real funny, bill.

So, he goes and tries --

I wonder if quicksand comes from

just a real narrow,

uh, rainstorm --

you know, just goes --

I don't know what it is.

But, anyway, nothing so far,

so it seems all right,

and this is, you know,

right on the driveway, too,

so you really want to know

if you got something there

because you can drove --

whoa, whoa, whoa!

Boy!

Boy, there's a patch of it

right there.

Get back. Get back, bill.

Get back. Get back.

Boy, and that went down fast,

too,

and it's -- and it's --

look at that, look at that.

Oh, my gosh.

That's deep.

So bill sticks a sign in there

to warn people.

It says, "warning" --

oh, you already saw that, yeah.

So now we go back to the front,

maybe put some life jackets

around that,

really mark it properly

'cause the sign --

but where's the...

I thought we had a whole

bunch -- where's the stuff?

We had a whole bunch of --

what's -- where?

Oh, oh, oh, oh!

Oh, my gosh.

Another --

no, that wasn't there before.

It was, you know.

What the heck?

Well, there -- oh, I see.

All right, all right.

The stuff has all fallen

into the quicksand.

Holy mackerel.

Yeah.

So bill's gonna go get the sign

'cause it's better

to have the sign up here

'cause this is probably

a bigger, but...

Huh?

Oh.

Uh, well, uh...

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I see.

All right, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

She fell in.

All right, all right.

So, anyway,

we're gonna leave that --

that's a smaller -- yeah, okay.

We need two signs, really,

is what we need,

and, uh, bill's gonna come back

and stick that in the front,

and then he wants to find

where the --

watch out, now.

Watch out.

No, it's a little farther

than that.

It was under that --

under that other life thing,

under that seat cushion.

That's --

under -- under the cushion.

Move the --

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, no, no.

Oh, my gosh.

Huh.

Well, that's very strange,

and I guess it healed over.

Hmm.

So back we go, and this time

I'm looking for the thing,

and bill's -- oh, oh, bill.

Bill.

Unfortunately, I didn't notice,

and I get back there, and I...

That one's gone, too.

This is very strange.

[ muffled ] help!

And bill's gone.

That's not quite so strange,

but where the heck is he?

Bill? Bill?

Oh, oh.

[ gagging ]

oh, my gosh.

Oh, I got to go get the, uh --

get the safety equipment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those are floatation cushions

there

and a little piece of chain

just in case he comes up

too fast, and...

Where is he?

I can't find -- oh, poor bill.

Where?

Oh, for god's sakes.

Yeah, yeah.

That's bill.

That's funny, bill.

Ooh! Ooh!

That sums it up for me.

Well, I'm out of there.

I don't know what it is

with the quicksand,

but hopefully it's all healed up

by now.

Aah!

Oh, no.

There's one more spot.

And another one

where the camera's standing.

And now for all you young kids

who aren't old enough

to know better, here's harold.

Oh, hi.

Okay, um, well, welcome

and good evening to my new show,

which is all about having a

career in movies and television.

Okay, it's a little feature

that I like to call...

[echoing] "thiz iz the biz."

[ laughs ]

okay, okay. All righty.

So I know --

I know it was spelled wrong,

so don't send me like a million

letters or anything like that

or have protests in front

of the unicef building

'cause I know

it was spelled wrong,

but that's the way

that people in the biz do it

just to show effect.

You know,

they say that for effect.

Like, things like, uh,

"let's do lunch."

"I'd rather be directing."

"no, harold, mr. Spielberg

won't take your call.

Please stop phoning us."

just say it for effect.

Yeah, it doesn't mean much.

It just shows that they are

indeed -- ha -- "players."

[ chuckles ]

okay, so, what do you need

to be in "the biz"?

[ laughs ]

like -- like rabbits.

Don't they look like a rabbit

going to work?

"I'm going to work.

I'm a rabbit."

okay, step one -- what you need

is like a friend or a relative

who already has a show.

There's no way they're gonna

know what they're doing, right?

So then they just hire you.

[ laughs ]

whoo-hoo!

Hi, uncle red.

Hi.

You know what I was doing?

It's so funny, so funny.

'cause what I was doing --

what I --

you know what I was doing?

I was --

I was explaining what people

need to be in "the biz."

oh, well, harold,

right now,

I need you to clean

"the septics."

oh, okay, all righty.

Wa-a-a.

And -- and step two is, you must

be prepared to do anything

while waiting

for your big break.

Yeah, especially during

sweeps week.

Oh! Oh!

[ laughs ]

[ film projector clicking ]

[ dryer whirring ]

"it is summer.

"in the intense heat,

everything expands,

"with the exception

of last year's shorts.

Rip.

Heat wave."

reg is a vegetarian hunter,

and I thought he might be able

to use a couple of the tanks

to store the meat

that he's not eating.

Reg, you know what you

could use, I think,

is a couple of big tanks

to make into smokehouses

for you venison and so on.

No, sorry, red.

When I came up here,

I stopped eating meat.

And you started

killing meat.

It's not the kill,

it's the hunt.

So far,

I haven't bagged a thing.

Oh, yeah? You almost bagged me

a minute ago.

[ rattling ]

shh!

Oh, this is good.

Gotcha!

Yikes!

You got to be

a lot more careful than that

when you come sauntering

through the woods, you big --

you should have faxed me a memo

or something!

Well, I can see why

you became a vegetarian.

I almost

got something there.

Well...

Today is one of those days

where everybody comes away

a little wiser,

a little more humble.

Got the eyebrows

singed off there,

but luckily no one

was hurt seriously.

Ha!

That's only because nobody

was on rock reef point

when your little lighthouse

decided to turn into

a huge firecracker.

Yeah, harold,

but on the bright side,

the explosion completely

eliminated rock reef point,

so now we don't need

a lighthouse.

And I'll tell you --

old man sedgwick's

gas-powered lawn roller

turned out a lot better

than we expected.

Now we got a flat lawn,

a flat driveway,

and a new road into town.

And that thing moved, too.

You should have heard the noise.

Ba-oom-ba!

Ba-oom-ba! Ba-oom-ba!

[ screeching ]

that's the possum.

It's meeting time.

Yeah, yeah.

You go ahead, harold.

I'll be --

I'll be right down.

You know, I think it was

james joyce who said

that a genius makes no mistakes,

that his errors are on purpose,

and they become

the portholes of discovery.

And that's the kind of thing

you say

when you do something

real stupid.

So, if my wife is watching,

uh, your genius will be coming

straight home after the meeting.

My clothes

kind of smell like gas,

so I'm just gonna leave them all

on the porch.

You can do the same thing

if you like.

I wouldn't mind

a few more fireworks.

And so, on behalf of myself

and harold

and the whole gang

up here at possum lodge,

thanks so much for watching,

and keep your stick on the ice.

[ indistinct conversations ]

[ screeching ]

all rise!

All:

Quando omni flunkus, moritati.